Monstrous Beauty (16 page)

Eleanor Ontstaan had already devised a plan.

“Sarah and Ezra are inseparable,” she pointed out. “We must remove Ezra from the scene, or he will interfere.”

“He’s en church alone on Sunday…”

“That’s a week from now, Pastor. Here is what I propose for a more immediate solution: you must think of a project that requires Ezra’s help—he is bookish, it should be simple—and take him to the White Horse Pub to discuss it with him tomorrow night.”

“I
am
workin’ on a translation of a par-ticularly arduous La’in text…”

“Fine. Perfect. I only ask that you make it believable. While you and Ezra are at the White Horse, my sister’s child Adeline will tell Sarah that he has suddenly taken ill. She’ll take Sarah to the church by the back door.”

“Ah, bu’ Ezra may already have told Sarah tha’ we’re a’ the pub…”

“Very astute,” Eleanor said. “Which is why you must ask Ezra to meet you at the church, but divert him to the pub when he arrives. That should be effortless for you,” she said pointedly.

He pinched his lips together.

She went on. “Do you know the two large sarcophagi that are in the crypt?”

“Reverend Robinson’s an’ Elder Brewster’s, aye.”

“The lid is off Reverend Robinson’s sarcophagus. I shall fill it with water, so that you may see Sarah breathe underwater.”

The pastor was silent.

“You will bid goodbye to Ezra at an appointed time and hurry back to the crypt for the test of water.”

He shook his head solemnly. “Ef wha’ you say es no’ the truth—ef she cannae breathe underwater—this test es too dangerous.”

“Not at all. We shall have complete control. The moment she appears to be in distress, we shall let her up, and a burden will be lifted from our conscience—she will be exonerated. That is the happiest of outcomes.”

“She’ll be destressed from the instan’ she feels trapped with us en the crypt…”

“Come now, you understand my meaning, Pastor.” She smiled patiently. “We will safeguard her life, of course. Our goal is to
save
her soul, remember.”

*   *   *

The next evening, little Adeline dutifully knocked on the Doyles’ door, wearing her best Sunday dress—plum-colored, with a square collar, a drop waist, and a wide white sash tied in a large bow in the back. Her fair hair was curled into corkscrew ringlets. The housekeeper answered.

“My name is Adeline Angeln,” she said, clutching her doll. “May I speak with Mrs. Doyle?”

“Mrs. Doyle is reading in the study and not receiving visitors,” the housekeeper said. “May I give her a message?”

Adeline shook her head, confused. “I’m supposed to ask for Mrs. Doyle.”

“Step inside, please, miss.”

The housekeeper disappeared down the corridor.

Sarah came into the foyer a minute later carrying a book in one hand with her index finger holding her place, wearing a lightweight dressing gown over a layered dress. Adeline took a breath when she saw her: she was the palest, most graceful woman she had ever seen.

“Mrs. Doyle?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Adeline Angeln, Mrs. Doyle.”

“How do you do, Adeline?”

“Very well, I thank you.” She paused, mesmerized.

“May I help you with something?” Sarah prompted gently.

Adeline blinked. “Yes,” she said. “That is, she sent me to tell you…” she began to recite, “that
Mr.
Doyle has taken ill, and I’m to take you to the
church
. By the
back
way. Because … because it’s
closer
to him.”

Sarah had already set down her book and was quickly removing her dressing gown. Adeline stared at the dress that was beneath it: a simple off-white gown, with a diaphanous cape from her shoulders to her feet and an overskirt embroidered with faint flowers.

“Mrs. Banks!” Sarah cried. “Will you bring me my summer jacket?” She turned back to the little girl. “How ill is he, Adeline? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know; she said to say he was ill.”

“Who is
she
, Adeline? Who sent you?” Sarah slipped into the jacket but pushed a delicate bonnet with feathers and silk ties back at Mrs. Banks, refusing it.

“My auntie,” Adeline said in a low voice.

Sarah bent down to look her in the eyes. “Mrs. Banks has some lovely cake and fresh milk. Stay here with her, and I’ll send your auntie for you as soon as I get there.”

“Please, Mrs. Doyle,
I’m
supposed to take you. She made me memorize her instructions, and my auntie is…” She hesitated, her brow furrowed. “She’s awfully particular.”

Sarah stood up again, hesitating. “It’s more than a mile and a half down Court Street.”

“My father says I’m a strong walker,” Adeline said.

“Very well.” She turned Adeline toward the door and marched her out. “But as quickly as you can, do you understand? I want to ring Dr. Stephens’s bell on the way.”

“Oh, no!” Adeline said, as they hustled down the street. “I’m not supposed to bring the doctor, just you.”

“What do you mean?”

Adeline was flustered. “He’s … Mr. Doyle is only a
little
ill. He’ll be well soon, I promise! He needs you, that’s all.”

“You said you did not know how ill he is,” Sarah reminded her, several steps ahead of her.

“I meant … I didn’t know
what
was wrong with him, but he’s not terribly ill, not ill enough for a doctor.”

“I think it’s safest if we pass by Dr. Stephens’s home.”

They turned the corner and Sarah ran the last block, leaving Adeline behind.

“Please, Mrs. Doyle, please don’t bring the doctor,” Adeline called out to her. She dropped her doll as she hustled along out of breath and went back to retrieve it. She dusted the doll off and straightened her satin bows.

When she turned around again, she saw that Mrs. Doyle was knocking on the doctor’s front door. To Adeline’s great relief, after several knocks there was no response. She wedged the doll securely under her arm and ran to catch up.

There was a slip of paper tacked to the Stephenses’ door. Sarah turned to Adeline with her brow furrowed.

“He’s delivering Becca Howe’s baby down at the Howes’ cranberry bog. He’s miles away. How fast can you run, Adeline? Let’s run to the church. Quick as you can.”

*   *   *

When they arrived at the back door of the church, the old pastor was waiting for them. He beckoned to Sarah to enter. Adeline waited outside.

“Where is he?” Sarah said. “Where is Ezra?”

“Everything es fine, Mrs. Doyle, have no fear,” the old man said, taking her hand in his and patting it.

“The little girl—Adeline—she said he was ill. Where
is
he, Pastor?”

“Come with me, I have somethen’ to show you.”

Outside in the graveyard, Eleanor emerged from her hiding place behind the row of tombs as soon as she saw Sarah enter the church. She was carrying Marijn.

Adeline blurted, out of breath, “There you are, Aunt Ellie!”

“Shhh,” Eleanor hissed. She approached Adeline, walking softly and cradling the baby against her breast.

“Now take baby Marijn, Adeline,” she whispered, “and tend to her until I return. I won’t be long. Be very careful with her.” She held the baby out.

Adeline looked down at the doll in her arms. “But what shall I do with Poppet?”

Eleanor’s eyes pierced the girl like darts. “Put Poppet down and give your full attention to this child, do you understand? I haven’t the time for argument, I must…” She clenched her jaw. “Help the old pastor.”

“But I can’t put Poppet on the ground, Aunt Ellie, she’ll get dirty.”

“Set her on a headstone, then,
right now
. And hurry,” she warned. “I’m losing patience.”

“Yes, Aunt Ellie,” Adeline said, avoiding Eleanor’s eyes.

Adeline went to the nearest tombstone and brushed dirt and dust off the top. She tried to balance Poppet in a seated position, but every time she released her, the doll would begin to tip backward or forward.

Before Adeline knew what was happening, Eleanor was upon her.

“Stupid girl!” she said, grabbing Poppet from the headstone and throwing her to the ground several feet away. Adeline gasped and moved to retrieve the doll.

“Leave it,” Eleanor said through her teeth. Adeline froze in place and looked at her aunt. One small shoe had come off in Eleanor’s hand, and she pitched it after the doll, with her eyes locked on Adeline. She held Marijn out, and Adeline accepted her with tears welling in her lower lids.

“This is a living, breathing child, not a worthless doll, do you understand?”

“Yes, Aunt Ellie.” Adeline’s voice quavered. The baby was heavy.

“Nothing will happen to this baby while I am in the church.”

“No, Aunt Ellie.”

“You will protect her with your life, is that clear?”

“I will, Aunt Ellie, I promise.”

“If I return to find that your precious Poppet has moved even so much as a hair from that spot, I’ll
tear her apart
.”

Adeline looked at the doll, facedown in the dust, her curls spilling everywhere and a leg twisted under her body, and nodded, because her throat was suddenly too hot and swollen to speak.

Eleanor stormed into the church to set the world right again after Olaf’s death.

Chapter 25

H
ESTER HURRIED
through the library parking lot with her entire body trembling. She had never stolen anything before, or told such a bald-faced lie. What had come over her? She rummaged through her pocket for the car keys, and a slip of paper fell out. She picked it up and quickly let herself into the car. She put her head on the steering wheel and took a deep breath. No librarians were coming out of the building searching for her, no police cars were swooping into the lot. She unfolded the slip of paper in her hand. It was her hand-drawn map of the locations of the graves of Nellie Burroughs and Grace Keep. She wanted to see the graves, which she had probably passed a hundred times as a child playing with Linnie. And after that, she needed to see Ezra.

She went back to Plimoth Plantation and finished her shift halfheartedly. She was in the parking lot six minutes after the all clear.

On the way to the cemetery, she bought three small potted violets at a florist shop. She parked in the lot on the west side of the hill. She walked up the concrete steps and headed toward the obelisk commemorating William Bradford. Nellie’s grave was southwest of it. The headstone was made of limestone, a material that was cheaper to engrave and install than blue slate, but weathered more quickly. It was difficult to read.

NELLIE BURROUGHS

1892–1916

Come view the scene twill fill you with surprise

Behold the loveliest form in nature dies

At noon she flourish’d blooming fair and gay

At evening an extended corpse she lay

Hester kissed her fingers and pressed them to Nellie’s name. She bent down and pulled the grass and weeds away from the base of the stone and left a pot of violets. She stood up and looked around, trying to be the eyes and ears of the woman in the grave who was long gone. She took a deep breath of ocean air, for Nellie. Then she went off in the direction of John Howland’s grave, to find Grace’s grave east of it.

GRACE KEEP (NEE BURROUGHS)

Mar. 31, 1916–Oct. 6, 1941

Green as the bay tree, ever green,

With its new foliage on.

The young, the healthful have I seen,

I passed, and they were gone

Her throat tightened with the beginning of tears, but she swallowed the feeling away. Again she tended to the weeds at the base of the stone and left the second pot of violets. Then she took her last pot of violets up the hill to the Crotty headstone—Bartholomew and his two wives. She stood looking at Marijn’s short epitaph and involuntarily reached up to touch her necklace—the necklace that Marijn had worn around her own warm neck more than a hundred years ago. How strange the world was, that a necklace should exist virtually forever, and a human life, worth so much more, should be short.

As she sat on the bench under the tree to rest, she lifted the messenger bag off her shoulder. She looked carefully around her. No one was in the cemetery, so she opened the buckles on her bag and slipped the journal out to read it. She was gentle—the least she could do after stealing the book was to take good care of it.

She admired the leather cover, opened the pages, and put her nose carefully inside to take a deep breath of the rag paper. Honestly, it felt like it was her book, like she had owned it her whole life.
What is wrong with me lately?
she wondered. She let the pages fall to a random spot and began reading. It was a passage about Squauanit—the oldest of the surviving sea folk and, after tens of thousands of years, a hideous sea monster. Despite her appearance, Squauanit was vain. She was also overbearingly selfish and possessive. The illustration of her was vague and shadowy, with smudges for eyes and only her thinning, stringy long hair drawn in detail, trailing the length of a hazy, doughy body.

“What’s that you have there?” a high voice asked behind her.

Hester twisted in her seat to see a little girl looking at the journal over her shoulder. She had blond curls and was wearing a plum-colored dress with a white sash.

“I haven’t seen a
single
book since you left,” the girl said, frowning. “And that one has pictures. May I borrow it?”

Hester’s mouth hung open. A strangled moan escaped her involuntarily and then, suddenly, she felt sick. The girl had not aged a single day after ten years.

“Linnie…” Hester stood up, knocking her bag onto the ground but still clutching the journal.

And then she did throw up. Or rather she heaved, right on the grass to her side, and nothing came out but a thick strand of saliva. She coughed and spit the saliva onto the ground.

“Linnie,” she said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
“Linnie!”
she choked.